A chip off the old motor block

His Italian grandfather, Sonny Bonafede was a multiple Western Province rally champion in the 1960s, and father Vito is perhaps the best known navigator in South Africa with 10 national championship titles behind his name.

At 23, Bonafede has crammed a lot of racing into less than a quarter of a century.

The racer is currently one of the star drivers at the wheel of an Audi S4 in the ultra-competitive class A field of the Bridgestone Production Car Championship.

At the age of nine, the Bonafede’s family moved to England for a few years and he quickly adapted to a new style of driving.

“Looking back on that I think it was a good, solid grounding and it taught me how to drive in the wet,” he said.

Bonafede has a reputation of delivering the goods in the rain. He scored his first Bridgestone Production Car Class A win in sodden conditions at Kyalami.

After a solid grounding in karting, he finished fourth in the 2006 ROK World Finals in Italy and then joined the one-make Engen Volkswagen Cup in 2007.

By mid-season he’d scored an eye-opening third place at Gosforth Park Raceway and ended the season as Rookie Champion which carried the prize of a race in the German VW Polo championship.

His performance had caught the eye of Federal Mogul’s motorsport manager Ronnie Erasmus, who signed Bonafede to lead the Champion/Ferodo Young Drivers team in 2008. In 2011 he ended the season as championship runner-up in the Ferodo-backed Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Halfway through the 2012 season he switched to class A in an Audi S4.

Last year had its ups and downs for the driver, but he managed another win at Killarney in Cape Town.

“I finished as top Audi driver in more races than I expected,” he said. “I have got a lot of catching up to equal my dad’s record,” he quipped.